No Fool Here.... Multiples Discounts

BOGO Baby: The Blog began as a treatise on how to save money with twins (or more). I recently heard about a group Mothers of Super Twins, "founded in 1987...the leading national nonprofit provider of support, education and research on higher-order multiple births."

They provide this handy list of company freebies and discounts for multiples families. Shoes, formula, portraits, various toy companies.... the list is long. The site includes a sample letter for you to copy and amend for your needs.

They also have a list of freebie sites, coupons, articles, and more for mothers of multiples.

Savings Idea #6: Earn by Buying

There are many ways to earn money by selling off unwanted goods, as discussed last week. But you can easily earn money with little input with these Internet ideas.

Review your purchases at Epinions, and earn money on them indefinitely. Be sure to check in frequently, or lose your balance. Electronics and travel reviews are popular.

If you shop online and don’t use a shopping portal, someone’s losing money. You can shop through various charity portals; Box Tops for Education hosts 150 popular online retailers; click through the BT4E website and earn eBox Tops for your preferred school. Or you can get the cash back yourself. Our favorite online portal is FatWallet. The stores listed give you between 1% and 15% cash back on your purchases at their sponsored retailers, real cash which you can have delivered to your PayPal account or receive via check mailed to your home.

Register your grocery cards with Upromise, or your most favored credit card with a restaurant loyalty rewards program. These programs give you cash back, essentially, for purchases. Be careful, though; Upromise will send your earnings to the aforementioned escheats division in your state if you fail to login for 3 years.

Planning to get a credit card? Get one that gives you more; airline miles, hotel points, or cash back are all earnings that save you money in the long run.

Again, think creatively! Some stores, including WalMart, may pay YOU to take their goods home. Using coupons and store promotions, you can occasionally get the price of an item down to a negative number. WalMart, Kroger, and other stores return the change as a store gift card. This also works at drug stores with cash-back register rewards. If you have a coupon for an item that is going to earn you a rewards coupon on a future purchase equal to the amount of the item (buy a toothbrush at $2, get a $2-off reward), you can earn money by involving a cents-off MCP for that item.

Couponing: Where do you find the slippery papers?

More specifically, where do you get several copies of the same great coupon? Because the best way to make a deal work is to find the best deal and beat it to death with as many purchases as allowed by your budget, limits on the coupon (often 4 like coupons for P&G per day), or limits imposed by the store (my local CVS only takes up to 3 a transaction). In Zen Couponing, we stockpile, but it’s a very small pile.

I aim for 4-6 sets of coupon books. That said, if I see (as I do this Thanksgiving), that the black Friday inserts were not only widely unavailable but stolen from my paper in front of my house, then I may go a little farther afield in collecting other coupons. Everyone was ignoring the stack of free P&G inserts over the weekend, which I felt ok about helping myself to late in the game, so I ended up with 14. I aim for a max of 20 in this type of situation. Why 20? Because you can sell the “collection service” and mail them to the winning bidder cheap. But less than 20 of any one coupon is not a large-enough lot for which you can sell your clipping services, if you want to do so. I tried it -- listed 8 sets of coupons on ebay and sold ONE. Not worth the time and trouble, in my book. Still, as a guideline 20 is a really good haul. Getting those P&Gs on a hard weekend where I got few other coupons was satisfying, and will stand me in good stead when I find a really great deal on one of those products. It's a balancing act.

Because 99% of people don’t use their coupons, thieves who rob your paper’s innards – the very ones you’ve bought the paper for – are annoyingly smug. I imagine them thinking, as my old neighbor did about moving my trashcans at his pleasure, that “if you’ve got a problem with me taking your paper/moving your trashcans/trespassing on your property/etc., all you have to do is let me know!” Do let your carrier know, and try to arrange a different delivery location than the public sidewalk. They may be willing to put it in your door, or throw it farther onto the property to discourage petty thievery.

If you do miss some coupons, look in the freebie Gazette paper you normally recycle midweek. The same companies that put out the Sunday paper coupons – Red Plum (RP) and Smart Source (S) – print nearly identical ones for your local paper. You get an advance copy. So go dig last week’s copy out of your recycling bin, and take a look. Other copies of the gazette will be piled up around town, in strip malls, libraries, and public spaces.

Ask for them at stores you frequent. I picked up several at Giant, which doesn’t really print its own coupons. It slaps its label on the MCP, which is a tricky bit of footwork. You can’t use the coupon anywhere else, but neither is it really a store coupon, so you can’t combine it with another MCP. Safeway prints coupons in its weekly circular, available in the Sunday Paper, as do RiteAid, CVS, and other stores. Walgreens also prints its own booklets.

Third, order the Sunday paper. You’ll get the Sunday insert on Saturday, at least with the Washington Post – and by ordering a subscription you’ll save more than a dollar on the cost of a $2 paper. Every week. Right now the Post is running a special (11/11), where you can get a year for 59 cents an issue (70% off!). One common $1 coupon a week will cover it.

Next, you can ask neighbors, relatives, and friends. A recent episode of TLC’s Extreme Couponing noted that 99% of coupons go unused, so people won’t mind donating them.

Dumpster diving may be illegal in your state. Also, diving into dirty papers filled with bugs and possibly the sleeping homeless (paper is warm) is Extreme bordering on Crazy. Be Zen.

Keep an eye out at the store. Tear sheets (pads of coupons attached to the shelves), Catalina Coupons (register printed coupons), ValPaks delivered to your house… all are sources for coupons. These are of course mostly grocery coupons, but the ValPak has coupons for services as well, and often includes restaurant discounts.

Some stores, such as Safeway, allow you to download coupons onto your loyalty card. I haven’t tried this, but it seems like a nice paperless way to do business. It may also reduce errors and “coupon snipping”. However, it doesn’t sound like nearly as much fun.

You can print coupons on the Internet at various sites, but I caution you against allowing crawlers to watch your every move on the Internet. Printing coupons is limited to two prints per computer, so having several computers in our house seemed ideal. But in the end we decided to put my old laptop into service as a sole-purpose couponer. My favorite site is CouponMom, which allows you to view deals, gives you the coupon info., including the pub date, and lets you select deals and print a list.

Lastly, people do clip coupons and sell them as a service to others. That is, they are not selling you the coupon – that’s against the rules and technically invalidates the coupon. Nonetheless coupons are available for sale at various sites, including eBay. I bought the clipping service for 20 $2/2 packs Pampers, and they helped me get that great diaper deal a few weeks ago.

Finding coupons is not a problem. Organizing them might be.....

Couponing: Basics

Coupons come in several types: the most common are Manufacturer’s coupons (MCPs) in those inserts, Catalina machines, and other sources. Then there are Restaurant/Service coupons (RC/SvC, in the ValPak envelope); Store coupons (SCs) in their flyers are often called in-ad coupons. Recently Jon picked up a Macy’s Reusable Discount Card, stiff glossy card with start and end dates. Lastly, you'll find coupons on or in the goods you buy. Stuck on a product, it's a "peelie"; inside the product I would call In-Item Coupon, such as I've found in Pampers boxes, Celestial Seasonings Tea, and Duracell batteries. P&G likes to put coupons for various products in its boxes.

Charity coupons (CCs) on purchased goods are increasingly popular. My binder has a tab for BoxTops for Education (BT4E), and I print a collection sheet, and glue the little suckers on there. When it’s full, I take it to my local elementary school, where the twins will be attending in 4 years or so. Other charities with on-product coupons include the Susan G. Komen Foundation, and Campbell’s Labels for Education. I play Scavenger Hunt in my pantry for CCs. Also, there are Codes to turn in for goods; Pampers' Gifts to Grow program puts labels in its baby products, as does Coca Cola. You enter these online and use the points to purchase goods.

Coupons come in several value groups. I break them down as:

20¢ - 49¢ Low. I’ve never seen a coupon lower than 20¢.

50¢ - 99¢ The Golden Range.

$1 - $1.50 Most coupons these days are $1, usually off two items. Occasionally stores double coupons to $1.99.

$2 – $2.50 These coupons are rare.

More than $2.50 “High dollar coupon”

BOGO —Buy One Get One Free

BOGOHOFF—Buy One Get One Half-Off

Now, which is the most valuable coupon? Most of the coupons I see are for $1/2 items, more rarely $1/1. But some stores will double coupons with a face value 99¢ or less. So an 80¢ coupon is way more valuable than the $1 one, because it’s worth $1.60 at stores which double coupons[i][i]. Occasionally stores (such as Bloom) run promotions where they double coupons to $1.99. Depending on the cost of the item, the BOGO and BOGOHOFF coupons may be High-Dollar. Some stores double coupons to 49¢, 50¢ and up doubles to $1.

Your Assignment: Get some coupon booklets. Booklets are widely available. Most freebie papers include them; these are delivered to your home once weekly, or are available at malls, libraries, and grocers. Some stores put out their own coupon books and fliers, including Target, Giant, Walgreens, Rite Aid, and CVS. Ask for these at the service counter if you do not see them around the store's entry. The most ethical way to collect some spare booklets is to only take one free paper when you pass a stack. Maybe two. Check to be sure the inserts you're after are there. Although I personally feel someone else might want the rest of the paper, this rarely turns out to be the case. I asked about this on a message board, and was overwhelmingly voted down; the consensus -- take the whole paper, not just the inserts, and recycle it.

For us, I aim for between two and six sets of (nearly) identical booklets. The booklets differ by region and source; the Post may have different ones than the Baltimore Sun, slightly, and these may be slightly different than the ones in your freebie paper, all of which may be very different from the coupons in the LA Times. When confronted with the rare but happy sight of a stack of new SC books, I take six. No more. Why six? There are four of us in my family, and I like to share with a couple of friends.

There is no need to be gluttonous about coupons. Pick a number that is roughly equivalent to the size of your family as a reasonable maximum goal. If you want extra coupons for a particular product, there are many ways to get one-offs (check out eBay and printable coupon sites).

Assignment Part B: Once you’ve collected some booklets, look through them. On the first pass, clip coupons for items you currently have in your home, or which are on your grocery list. Use Listerine? Clip that $1 off 2 ($1/2) coupon. Use Trash bags? Clip that coupon. Is “cheese” on shopping list on your fridge? Clip it. And store them in a box (I used a large Ziploc fridge container for a while.) Find Coupons for items on your shopping list? Clip them to the list, and give it a try at your next shopping trip.

Assignment Part C: Use some coupons at your next shopping trip. Part of some people’s resistance to couponing is that it smacks of food stamps. I do it with as much polish and calm as I can muster given mothering twins. It’s just another form of tender. Don’t be nervous no matter how many coupons you have, don’t worry about the people behind you (for large trips or complicated series of transactions, warn them cheerfully), and check your receipt before you leave the cashier’s station, your purchases as you load the car. I've had more than one instance where an item wasn't loaded into my cart, or the coupons didn't post right.

Always remember: It’s a penny earned.

I’ll discuss the various aspects of couponing over the next several blogs.

Basic Terms and Abbreviations:

• $1/1, $1/2: Save one dollar off one item, one dollar off two items
• BOGO: Buy one item get one free
• B2GO: Buy two items get one free
• BOGOHOFF: Buy one get one Half-off
• Blinkies: Coupon dispensers found on store aisles
• CAT: Catalina machine coupons print out at grocers, including Safeway and Giant
• CC: Charity Coupon
• CRT: Cash register tape.
• CODES: Rewards codes found in products, such as Pampers' Gifts to Grow program
• DND: Do not double
• ECBs: ExtraCare Bucks, CVS
• FAR: Free after rebate
• IVC: Instant Value Coupon, Walgreens in-ad coupon
• MCP: Manufacturer Coupon
• MiR: Mail-in rebate
• OYNO: On your next order
• Peelie: Peel-away coupon on the product package
• PQ: Printable coupon
• PSA: Prices starting at
• RC: Restaraunt Coupon
• RRs: Register Rewards, Walgreens Catalina rewards program
• SCs: Store Coupons
• SCR: Single-Check Rebate, Rite Aid monthly rebates program
• UPC: Universal product code or bar code
• WYB: When you buy
  

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[i][i] Giant and Safeway claim to double coupons every day. Walmart and Kmart double coupons once in a while.

Savings Idea #3: Earn by Selling

Savers are “scrappers” at heart. It’s a funny old term. Scrapper. My Granny was a scrapper. The dictionary definition is: “a person who removes or does away with scraps,” which fits nicely with my desire to reuse and recycle. It can also mean a fighter. To Granny a scrapper was someone who got down and did the work necessary for earning a living.

The consignment sales discussed last week can be money-makers for you. In 2011, I participated in two Consignment sales for our mom’s group (CAMOM), and earned serious cash for the twins’ 529 Plan. I sell books to a local reseller, and have sold off old appliances rather than letting the delivery guys haul them away (even broken ones can be recycled for cash). I have sold some small items on eBay, though it makes more sense to me to use an intermediary like I Sold It for larger items ($50+) than deal with it myself.

If your community hosts a yard sale day, join! We earned over $200 at each of our last two yard sales for scraps we didn’t want or never used: lamps, building supplies and tools, old bikes, kitchenware, working electronics, and goods NWT sell easily (more about yard selling in the spring). Consignment stores earn you the lowest percentage, but I’ve tried them. Even donations can garner your extra bucks back in tax breaks, but keep careful records.

Scrappers know nothing is scrap. Everything has some value, and it may be worth your time to sell that old appliance on Craig’s list. Have a beat up auto that hasn’t run in 10 years in your yard? Sell it for scrap and get $300 to $500 and have it hauled away free. If a contractor offers to haul off the “scrap” from a job for free, consider carefully. Those holey copper gutters you replaced, brass faucets, and ancient chandelier are composed of valuable metals. Even old wiring has copper in it which recycling centers will pay for. These will earn your contractor a profit at the local for-profit recycling center; insist he leave valuable metals behind for you to recycle into cash.

Stop lugging around those old college texts and half-read books. BookHolders has locations in MD, VA, Austin TX, Tampa FL, and Morgantown WV. Half-price books has locations in various states. Essentially, these resellers will buy your books outright, or list them online and pay you as they sell. Bookholders mails me a check when they sell something. Bookholders will store them, list them for 18 months, then donate or return them. We figure we’ve earned more than $200 since we began lugging our unwanted books to their storefront shop in College Park. Check near your local university for second-hand booksellers.

You can also find resellers for CDs and DVDs, auction houses for old furniture, jewelers who buy the vintage jewelry you never wear, and pawn shops for electronics, valuable coins, and scrap jewelry. Even Amazon will outright buy your out-of-print books on occasion.

Granny used to keep everything for 7 years; if she didn’t find a use for it, she’d pass it on to someone who did. The point is, before you trash or donate something, think creatively. Is it intrinsically valuable (made of a valuable material), or still useable (good items for Craig’s list)? Do you have a place to store items for a yard sale? Before you unload all your old goods into the donation pile, take them first to an appropriate reseller, who will buy what they want and return the rest. If you can’t sell it, or don’t want to, donate the old car to Purple Heart, books to the library, clothes and household goods to Goodwill, and take the tax write-off; for every $100 you create in taxes you get a $30 refund. Just keep careful, honest records! And enjoy the de-cluttering.

Lastly, if you have a blog, monetize it!